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Translated by Bl. Jackson.
St Basil the Great Resources Online and in Print
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This Part: 129 Pages
Page 2
Letter CCXV. [2821]
To the Presbyter Dorotheus.
I took the earliest opportunity of writing to the most admirable Count Terentius, thinking it better to write to him on the subject in hand by means of strangers, and being anxious that our very dear brother Acacius shall not be inconvenienced by any delay. I have therefore given my letter to the government treasurer, who is travelling by the imperial post, and I have charged him to shew the letter to you first. I cannot understand how it is that no one has told you that the road to Rome is wholly impracticable in winter, the country between Constantinople and our own regions being full of enemies. If the route by sea must be taken, the season will be favourable; if indeed my God-beloved brother Gregory [2822] consents to the voyage and to the commission concerning these matters. For my own part, I do not know who can go with him, and am aware that he is quite inexperienced in ecclesiastical affairs. With a man of kindly character he may get on very well, and be treated with respect, but what possible good could accrue to the cause by communication between a man proud and exalted, and therefore quite unable to hear those who preach the truth to him from a lower standpoint, and a man like my brother, to whom anything like mean servility is unknown?
Letter CCXVI. [2823]
To Meletius, bishop of Antioch.
Many other [2824] journeys have taken me from home. I have been as far as Pisidia to settle the matters concerning the brethren in Isauria in concert with the Pisidian bishops. Thence I journeyed into Pontus, for Eustathius had caused no small disturbance at Dazimon, and had caused there a considerable secession from our church. I even went as far as the home of my brother Peter, [2825] and, as this is not far from Neocaesarea, there was occasion of considerable trouble to the Neocaesareans, and of much rudeness to myself. Some men fled when no one was in pursuit. And I was supposed to be intruding uninvited, simply to get compliments from the folk there. As soon as I got home, after contracting a severe illness from the bad weather and my anxieties, I straightway received a letter from the East to tell me that Paulinus had had certain letters from the West addressed to him, in acknowledgement of a sort of higher claim; and that the Antiochene rebels were vastly elated by them, and were next preparing a form of creed, and offering to make its terms a condition of union with our Church. Besides all this it was reported to me that they had seduced to their faction that most excellent man Terentius. I wrote to him at once as forcibly as I could, to induce him to pause; and I tried to point out their disingenuousness.
[2821] Placed in 375.
[2822] i.e. of Nyssa, an unsuitable envoy to Damascus.
[2823] Placed in 375.
[2824] On this word other the Ben. note grounds the argument that Meletius had proposed a journey which Basil had not undertaken, and hence that the unnamed bishop of Letter ccxiii. is Meletius; and further that the fact of the bishop not being named in ccxiii., and the obscurity of this and of other letters, may indicate the writer's hesitation to put particulars in his letters which might be more discreetly left to be conveyed by word of mouth.
[2825] i.e. the settlement on the Iris, where Peter had succeeded Basil as Head.
Reference address : https://www.elpenor.org/basil/letters-3.asp?pg=2
